


danse macabre

by ariadnes



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Blood and Violence, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Episode: s03e14 The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, He Does Not Get One, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Unhealthy Flirting Methods, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 11:31:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18916102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes/pseuds/ariadnes
Summary: One moment, Bruce was being killed by Bane. The next, he was years younger and at the mercy of Jerome ValeskaHe wasn't sure which was worse.





	danse macabre

**Author's Note:**

> Mari, I hope you enjoy this! It ended up being the opposite of fluffy and sweet, but I think it fits really well with their characters and yeah, I'll shut up now.

Bruce was nineteen.

It was an inescapable truth. Sometimes. It was. It wasn't. It depended on— _what?_ Temporality.

Most of the time, at least. Or, sometimes.

Not that any of it mattered right then and there or _ever_. He learned that the hard way.

The world was burning down around him and there was nothing he could do— _and there was nothing he could do._

(he knew that for a fact. yet another awful, inescapable truth. he knew it was a fact because he _tried_. he tried so hard, all the time, what was new? and what did it get him? Jim beaten and broken before his eyes; Alfred beaten and broken across town; Nyssa al Ghul whispering in his ears—her truth and her lies so wrapped up in each other that he could hardly process—promising him pain and retribution, clawing at his face, just like her father—)

The world was burning and there was nothing he could do to stop it and Eduardo Dorrance—Bane—whatever he was called now, was holding him by the neck, squeezing down, and the world was burning but dimly, now, fading by the second. He could hear Selina screaming, distantly, before the ringing in his ears overcame her, and Eduardo-Bane was still squeezing and it hurt, and he couldn't breathe, and it hurt, and he couldn't breathe—

 _And he couldn't breathe_.

And then there was nothing.

 

 

Then, light returned, flooding over him, suddenly.

It was as if a mask was lifted. Or, more accurately, a burlap sack.

He was at a carnival. He was at _Jerome's_ carnival. He shouldn't have been, because Jerome was dead and buried and unburied and reburied, and because the carnival had been dismantled, wrapped up in yellow tape and left to rot, a graveyard of depravity and sugary confectionary.

He was nineteen. He was fifteen. He was nineteen and fifteen and that was impossible. It was the truth, though. Inescapable. A temporal confusion.

He was nineteen and fifteen, or somewhere in between. He was the Bruce of then and the Bruce of now, and his skin was crawling in revulsion at the thought of comprehending anything, and he, as the panic set in, he thought that he might be losing it.

When he looked out at the half-blurred twinkling lights of the carnival, all the rides spinning and all the maniacs laughing, he couldn't muster up any emotion—no indignation, no righteousness—absolutely _nothing_. He felt nothing.

He felt— _unmade._

Remade, maybe. Unraveled? Definitely.

He'd done this before.

He knew how it went.

He knew he couldn't save them. Just like he couldn't save Jeremiah. Just like he couldn't save _anyone_ from Jerome—

But, he thought, watching a whack-a-mole game in morbid fascination, horrified by the vibrancy of the blood and brains that splattered, that he owed these people his help.

Who would he be otherwise?

( _better_ , his mind whispered traitorously, _free_.)

Who would he be if he gave up without a fight?

(his mind continued, much in the same vein:  _dead? happier?_ they might have been one and the same.)

 

 

The dunk-tank happened. As did the staples.

He was holding it together—

Up until he wasn't.

 

 

"What's got you all in a tizzy?" Jerome asked him, voice oil-slick, deceptively curious.

His maniacs lingered just far enough away to offer the illusion of privacy, which was a change, Bruce thought, from last time where they were always around, always underfoot.

They were in front of the vanity again—or was it for the first time? It didn't matter.

Looking in the mirror was difficult. He was so different in so many ways, most inconsequential, then he'd ever realized. He was so much smaller, still stuck at the beginning of his growth spurt; all height, no muscle. He looked soft in a way he couldn't recognize, could hardly imagine—unbruised and unmarred, still untouched by so many atrocities. His eyes weren't the same, though—needless things like hope and faith had been dug out by necessity—and when he met his own gaze his breath caught.

That wasn't him. It couldn't have been. He was looking at his reflection and he couldn't bring himself to make the connection between who he was and who he became, or vice versa.

Bruce wasn't one for vanity but now he couldn't look away, positive that if he did everything would fade away, disintegrating until he was left with nothing and no one; left at that vanity, withering and wrinkling and—

(he might have been losing it. he might have already lost it. he needed to get a grip—

he had to look because if he looked away the shadowed bits he saw peeking out would only grow and grow and grow, and he couldn't let that happen, he refused to let that happen.)

They were in front of the vanity, Bruce and Jerome, and together, Bruce with his face half-painted and dour, and Jerome with his face falling down—down— _down_ , blood startlingly bright against his wrecked skin, they made a pretty picture.

Or, well.

Maybe pretty wasn't the right word for it. There was an implied delicateness to pretty things, a subtle gentleness. Jerome was neither delicate nor gentle. Bruce had been both, once, but now he felt more fractured than anything, like a mirror missing a shard; nothing essential was gone, he was still functional, he was just— _less._

No, they were not a pretty picture. They were an amalgamation of the macabre, the grotesque.

They were only half-human in the technicolor lighting, both of them remade into something else, something _special_ , for the night Jerome wanted. Bruce wanted to tear his skin away from his body, dig his fingers into his painted cheeks and destroy himself, destroy whatever Jerome was trying to make of him, destroy his wretched, drawn-out plan. He _wouldn't_ —but he wanted to.

He knew someone else who had wanted to transform him. He knew someone else who had unmade him— _maybe, partially_.

The Valeska's were more alike than anyone gave them credit for.

(and Jeremiah, Bruce knew, _had_ made a pretty picture, striking even in the throes of insanity.)

His thoughts were abruptly shifted by Jerome rapping on his head, none too gently. "Little prince, little prince, where did you go?"

He kept his hand buried in Bruce's hair afterward, his other arm draped across his shoulders. A casual inversion of intimacy. Unfortunately familiar. Jerome—and Jeremiah—had always liked to touch him. A hand pressed to his cheek or his arm or his throat. Fingers pressed into his skin, leaving bruises behind. Better yet, a knife to his chest or his neck—or staples in his arm—their free hand kind, as the other left scars.

A permanent reminder of their intentions. A brand, of sorts, to keep Bruce tied to them.

(of course, there was no _them_ , now and he had to remember that. Jeremiah was nothing but a terrified engineer hiding below ground, and the only scar Bruce had from either Valeska was the fine, white line on his neck courtesy of Jerome at the behest of Theo Galavan. he resisted the urge to push his turtleneck down to trace his finger over it. it wasn't like it would be the first time he'd done so.)

Jerome's hand tightened in his hair, tugging on it roughly, effectively barring Bruce's neck. Par for the course, a switchblade opened against his skin a second later. It seemed his patience ran out.

"Lost in—" his breath hitched as Jerome pressed the knife down, the sting that followed, unfortunately, familiar, "—thought. Why do you care?"

Jerome laughed. It was not a sound that Bruce had missed. "You're my— _ahh_ —guest of honor. The star of the show. That's what you are tonight, Brucie-boy. I can't have your mind wandering to—unsavory places, can I?"

"More unsavory than this carnival?" he asked, probably stupidly—definitely stupidly.

He kept collating Jerome and Jeremiah in his head, creating some monstrous mix of the two, both more dangerous and more lenient. Jerome-Jeremiah; Jeremiah-Jerome. They were, in the end, one and the same.

(that was a lie—lie— _lie_. he was a liar. he was afraid. he was slipping and there was nothing to catch him because he was fifteen and nineteen, both and neither and—)

For a moment, Bruce was sure that Jerome was going to push the knife even deeper into his neck, press until he broke his artery, press until he bled out then and there, only half-painted, unfinished. Then he moved his hand away from his neck entirely, smacking his lips together, brow furrowed in thought. Everything he did now, despite the mess his face was, seemed amplified, funny in the way only unfunny things could be—

A joke without a punchline.

"Unsavory like you trying to play the hero and save any of these poor, unfortunate souls." He clicked his tongue against his teeth, faux-thoughtful. "Sounds like something you'd do."

Without thinking, he met Jerome's eyes in the mirror. They were Jeremiah's. Neither of them looked away.

He wondered what he saw in Bruce's eyes.

He didn't want to know the answer.

"You're hurting people who can't fight back. That doesn't really fit with your idea of turning Gotham into a madhouse, does it?" Bruce deflected, looking away.

Something complicated twisted itself across Jerome's face—at least, what remained of it. "Funny. I can't recall saying anything about a madhouse."

Bruce bit down on the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood.

The moment splintered.

 

 

There was blood on his mouth. That wasn't new.

There was blood on his mouth in the shape of a smile. That was.

(there was no nameless follower killed to torment him this time around. instead, Jerome brought his switchblade up to his own mouth, as red and ruined as it was, tapping it against his lip, his tongue peeking out to lap up the beads of blood Bruce had left behind. he kept eye contact as he did so. it was loud. it was obscene. Bruce should have been disgusted—he should have recoiled at the display, his stomach-turning and heaving, he should have been put-off. he felt none of those things. he felt nothing. he felt—

 _interested_.

he felt—

 _unhinged_.

he felt—

 _seen_.

after all the blood was cleaned away, Jerome tucked his knife somewhere among the many folds of his red coat. he was still looking at him. Bruce was still looking back. then, a laugh bubbling in the back of his throat, Jerome tore a staple out of his face, ripping at his skin further, not much in the scheme of the things, but enough that he was able to slip two fingers beneath his skin to the bloody mess he was concealing. still, he looked at Bruce and still Bruce looked back.

Jerome dropped his free hand back into Bruce's hair, his grip tight but not yet yanking, he leaned his head in close to Bruce's, their cheeks almost touching, Jerome's breath warm on his skin, all so he could croon into his ear, " _hold still._ "

and he listened.

he pressed his fingers down onto Bruce's mouth with more force than necessary, his nails scratching into his soft skin as he painted a smile across his lips. it was a reversal of events. it was new—and that was terrifying in itself, but there was nothing Bruce could do—nothing he could bring himself to do, but lick at his lips—nothing he could do but coat his tongue in the bitter taste, looking away from Jerome to meet his own eyes in the mirror, wondering how close to being unmade he was.

he wondered if Jerome was even the one tearing him apart at this point, or if he was doing it to himself.

then, Jerome grabbed at his chin, forcing him to look at him again—had he always been so needy—his smile spread horrifically wide, his gaze calculating. " _such a good boy._ "

he trailed his fingers back up to Bruce's mouth, tapping on his lips— _mocking_. Bruce tried to bite him. laughter followed.)

 

 

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, snapped tightly to some fixed point that Bruce had trouble wrapping his head around.

And so—

He ended up tied up in front of the cannon. He was made to smile this time.

Nothing changed.

_Nothing changed._

(and that was a good thing. it meant he survived. it meant he would be rescued. it meant so many, foggy and incomprehensible things that should have been good, but somehow weren't.)

 

 

Bruce ran into the house of mirrors. Jerome followed. There was no other way it would have happened. There was no other expectation, no other grand plan, when it came to— _them_.

It remained what it always was. A waltz. A tango. Messy and brutal and—

He'd missed it.

(there was something wrong with him. something horribly rotten inside that only kept decaying and molding, he thought. Nyssa al Ghul set it loose. and if not her, then Bane. and if not him, then Jeremiah. someone did this to him. someone made _this_ of him. it wasn't his fault. he never asked for it.)

Jerome has his gun in hand. He was taunting him, a livewire of emotion rushing through his voice, mostly excited—too excited. "There's no need to be shy, darling. C'mon out so we can have our grand finale."

Same arrogance, same surety, same cruelty. Different words. Bruce couldn't predict what would happen. He couldn't piece together why things had changed the way they had when so much remained the same. He couldn't read Jerome—he'd never been able to read him, though.

He didn't say anything in response. He found the correct spot to stand, let every mirror in the room cast his reflection. He avoided looking at himself, scared of what he'd see. Instead, he focused on Jerome. His face was already sliding down-down-down, the staples not nearly durable enough for the exertion he'd put them through. He looked like a nightmare. He looked inhuman, transformed.

Jerome played the part of a monster well. If he applied himself, Bruce knew he could play it even better.

(he could be cruel sometimes. unthinkingly, but still. there were so many angry, pointed shards in his chest, blurring wrongs and rights.)

_You're going to pay for what you've done._

He'd grown past the dramatics.

"You seem awfully— _ahh—_ worked up," Jerome said, aiming his gun to the right of him. "Kudos on the technique, though. Almost makes you seem—dangerous."

Then he fired.

Bruce lunged.

 

 

His hand was wet, sticky with blood as he dug his hand around the glass shard. Jerome was warm beneath him, heaving pleasantly, his face only half in place. And still, he smiled, pupils blown, unexpectedly pliant—waiting for Bruce to do something—waiting for Bruce to cross the line.

Once—before _everything_ —he would have dropped the knife. He would have screamed. He would have stayed balanced on the edge of oblivion, swinging like a parable, back and forth, letting monster after monster, man after man, dig their fingers into his heart, spreading grime and disease. Once, he'd been better. Then Jerome had happened—because everything seemed to come back to him in the end—Jerome happened and then Jeremiah happened and Bruce lost everything—his possessions destroyed loudly, himself destroyed softly. That was just the way of things.

Once, he'd been more.

(he was a liar—liar— _liar_. he hadn't ever been more than this. he was just pretending. he was _always_ pretending.)

He pressed the shard to Jerome's neck—relishing in the way his breathing hitched, watching as his ruined lips pressed themselves together, watching the line of his throat as he swallowed.

Jerome laughed. It was bubblier than usual. It taunted. "You won't."

Bruce could hardly breathe, head cloudy with anticipation. Something warm twisted low in his stomach, spreading through his veins. "I will."

And he did.

(afterward, when he let the glass fall from his stinging hand, he reached up to trace the scar Jerome had left on his neck.

a brand for a brand.

a concession. a proposal. a _beginning._ )

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always appreciated!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at jeromevalseka.


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